
I had recently moved back to Valencia where I started a new business venture parking cars for busy executives, like a personal valet service.
One evening I went to visit a wealthy client--–and Indian businessman who had recently relocated to Valencia--–who had just returned from work. When I asked him for his car keys, he said it wouldn’t be necessary as his wife was expected to go into labor at any minute and he wanted to have his car in front of the house, even though it meant it would be double parked and likely to get a ticket or even towed.
I told him as part of his executive platinum package, he was entitled to one complimentary overnight service per year designed specifically for this type of occasion, that a valet would stay with his car for up to 36 hours.
The man was thrilled so I asked him where his car was parked and he said he couldn’t remember the names of streets as he had only arrived in Valencia a few weeks earlier, but said it was parked on the same street as the BMW dealership where he had leased his car.
I asked him if meant Bertolín and he confirmed that was indeed the place.
I said that was a nice coincidence as I had lived on that street many years ago, but it seemed that I too couldn’t come up with the name of the street, a combination of not having been to Valencia in many years and the effects that aging had on my memory.
Just then I saw Antonio who used to be the doorman-cum-janitor of the office building situated directly between my apartment and the dealership on that street.
I walked over to where Antonio was talking to a couple of men on the street corner and he looked at me sternly for interrupting his conversation until at once he remembered the face from the past and greeted me with a hug and loudly exclaimed “hombre, Richard!”
After a few moments of small talk I told him that I had recently moved back to Valencia and started up a new company and needed to know the name of the street I where I once lived next to the office building where he worked, that the name had slipped my mind.
Antonio scratched his head as if to suggest he too had forgotten the name of the street.
After taking a few potshot guesses, he concluded the name of the street was Pintor Ricardo Verde.
Knowing that wasn’t the correct name—it was in fact the name of a nearby street where my wife at the time and I bought our first flat—and not wanting to embarrass Antonio, I agreed that was indeed the right name and thanked him and bid him farewell.
As I was walking back to my Indian client's house, the name of the street came to me just as he was approaching to hand me the keys to his car.
Calle del Naturalistsa Rafael Cisternas, I told the man.
Yes, indeed that was the name, he said as we both had laugh concurring that it was most certainly a difficult name to remember.
Then I woke up.
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